A Milder Thursday Before A Cooldown Into The Weekend And Beyond

Last night’s rain changed to a bit of snow, especially in areas west of North Platte and a few areas had some whitening of grassy areas. Otherwise, no major problems were reported. Now we can look forward to some milder weather Thursday before we cool down again by the weekend.

A ridge of high pressure extending from central Canada southward into the Southern Plains will control our weather through Thursday. However, as a potent area of low pressure just to the north of Washington State drop east-southward and into northwestern North Dakota by Thursday evening, it will act in concert with the high-pressure ridge, and a trough to the lee of the Rockies to produce a gusty southerly flow of milder air into Greater Nebraska. After a partly cloudy and cold night tonight with lows near 20, Thursday will be mostly sunny with highs in the 50’s. A southerly breeze will gust up and over 25mph at times.

The low over North Dakota will continue to move eastward, reaching extreme northern Minnesota Friday morning. This low will drag a cold front through the region overnight Thursday night into Friday morning, and as high pressure over southern Canada exerts more influence, temperatures will begin to cool down with highs remaining in the 40’s with sunny skies.

Temperatures will continue to cool during the weekend with highs falling to the upper 30’s to lower 40’s, with perhaps colder highs over northern parts of the viewing area.

Early next week, some very cold air will be situated over the Northern Rockies and Plains with highs in the single digits and teens, and lows near or below zero. As the arctic boundary begins to shift southward across the region in the Monday/Tuesday timeframe, we can expect temperatures to tumble, with highs by Wednesday staying in the teens and 20’s and lows from near zero to the lower teens. Some snow is also possible as waves of low pressure ride along the boundary.

It appears Thanksgiving day will be quite cold also, but we will update the forecast as we get closer to the holiday.

Mike